Illinois gets ‘caution’ grade for highway safety laws

(The Center Square) – A new report highlights highway safety laws a safety group says Illinois needs to improve.

In its 2021 Roadmap of State Highway Safety Laws, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety looked at 16 laws considered essential to traffic safety.

The organization gave every state a rating in five categories: Occupant protection, child passenger safety, teen driving, impaired driving and distracted driving.

Illinois received a “caution” grade for lack of a recommended safety laws, including a motorcycle helmet law and a booster seat law. The state received good marks for having restrictions on using cell phones, an open container law, and a rear-facing child seat requirement through the age of 2 law.

President Cathy Chase said the report is designed to spur action to implement solutions to keep motorists and road users safe and out of over-extended emergency rooms.

“During the nearly two decades we’ve been issuing the Roadmap Report, nearly 600,000 people have been killed on our nation’s roads and over 40 million have been injured,” Chase said. “This public health toll is significant, staggering and deserving of swift action and serious attention.”

Just more than 1,000 people died on Illinois roadways in 2019, and the ten year total is 9,930. The annual economic cost of motor vehicle crashes in Illinois is $10.8 million.

Illinois U.S. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi sponsored the Safe To Drive Act, which is meant to provide resources to states to encourage people to engage in non-distracted driving.

“This is essential as we try to get the message out that it is time to put down the phone,” he said.

Eight states – Rhode Island, Washington, Delaware, Maine, Oregon, California, New York and Louisiana – received a “green” or good rating for traffic safety laws. In addition to Illinois, 29 states received a “yellow” or caution rating.

Twelve states earned a “red” rating for danger for failing to adopt the organization’s recommended laws, including neighboring Missouri. Missouri is one of just two states with only three of the organization’s optimal laws on the books, after the repeal in 2020 of its 52-year-old helmet requirement for all motorcycle riders.

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